“We are women. And women are warriors, after all.”
I really think the blurb for this needs to be re-written to say that it is a slow-build or slow-burn feminist reimagining of The Little Mermaid. The oppression is there from the beginning, with a disgustingly misogynistic patriarchal society, but the anger towards it took a little too long to emerge for my liking (nearly 100 pages in). Once it begins, however, there’s no going back; it’s still a very slow build up, until the end, but I did enjoy the subtlety and the story suddenly went from being distinctly unlikeable to being one of my favourites this year; Gaia has to lose her voice in order to learn how to speak out and become her own person, not a plaything molded by men who want to keep her under control, and it is certainly a powerful thing to learn.
The end of the blurb describes The Surface Breaks as: ‘A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding.’ And there really is no better way to describe it (apart from a slow-burner). It is full of oppression and suffering, of women who have been taught that they are there purely for the enjoyment of men, that they should be pretty and desirable and quiet, who have been silenced so thoroughly that they no longer know their own powers. It really is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt beaten down, abused, or silenced, that you are worthy and you do matter.
I particularly loved Ceto, known by the merfolk as the Sea Witch, who completely destroyed everything that Gaia had been brought up to believe by her father, the Sea King. She is the badass mermaid of my dreams:
“My name is Ceto,” she snaps, pushing herself out of the chair until she towers above me. “It is your father who has insisted on calling me a ‘witch’. That is simply a term that men give women who are not afraid of them, women who refuse to do as they are told.”
Read: May 26th-30th 2018
4/5 stars
Magic, Ink, and Stardust 